Castle secures second major music event

A NEW festival is set to bring some big Australian and overseas country music acts to the region later this year.

Kryal Castle is set to host the first-ever Boardwalk Country Music Festival when the show arrives in late April and it’s fronted by US artists Jimmie Allen and Gavin DeGraw.

The announcement of the country music festival comes shortly after alt rockers The Smashing Pumpkins will also play the venue, and Kryal Castle CEO Bart Hamilton said it’s a huge double-win for the attraction.

“We definitely got a lot of fantastic feedback with The Smashing Pumpkins announcement,” he said.

“Now being able to add another festival around that, it just shows people that we can do a whole bunch of different types of shows.

“This also shows that people just want to come to our venue and see great music so it’s absolutely massive for us. We’re pretty excited about it. It’ll be a good weekend, and definitely busy for us.”

The two headliners will be joined by Australian artists Shannon Noll, Kasey Chambers, The Wolfe Brothers, Busby Marou, and Darlinghurst.

Kryal Castle will be one of the first of nine Australian venues to host the festival.

With the Boardwalk Country Music Festival to play Kryal a day before The Smashing Pumpkins Mr Hamilton said their back-to-back major events will offer very different atmospheres.

“Obviously a country audience is very different to a Smashing Pumpkins audience,” he said.

“It’s a bit more of an atmosphere and culture that everyone comes for.

“A country music festival is not something you see often at Ballarat so I think this is the start of something great.”

The Boardwalk Country Music Festival will take place at Kryal Castle on Saturday, 22 April.